Tear it out! A Lenten joke.
Bullfrog
Shipmate
in Kerygmania
Matthew 5:27-30
I find my mind staring at this passage and wondering if I'm a failure because it isn't the last thing I see. I've heard it joked, with varying degrees of seriousness, that there might not be a man alive who has manged not to occasionally notice that someone else's body is desirable.
Attaching a threat of violence to a near-unavoidable sin of the mind causes harm because it inspires unhealthy displacement, dissociation, and general denial of self.
On the other hand, you have the legacy of male theologians making awkward excuses for themselves, undermining the seriousness of the passage. "Oh, it's OK. Jesus said that to tell y'all that being holy is impossible, so give up and rely on grace!" Somehow that doesn't sit right either.
And while I can easily see how these teachings are based on a misreading of the passage, if you have to apply interpretive gloss the passage so carefully to get the proper teaching out of it, is it really that great?
I imagine how this passage has been abused and led to abuse, and I want to - according to its own logic - tear it out! Or amend it with something a little more sane. "Mind your thoughts, for they will become your actions" or somesuch.
Self control is a virtue, certainly, and men should learn to manage themselves on all levels, but my experience is that external threats of existential violence are not conducive to the proper exercise of self control. Plus threatening violence implies a lack of self control. Why is God so incompetent at management that they have to literally threaten people with destruction to get them to do something as simple as not staring at someone else's chest?
I find my mind staring at this passage and wondering if I'm a failure because it isn't the last thing I see. I've heard it joked, with varying degrees of seriousness, that there might not be a man alive who has manged not to occasionally notice that someone else's body is desirable.
Attaching a threat of violence to a near-unavoidable sin of the mind causes harm because it inspires unhealthy displacement, dissociation, and general denial of self.
On the other hand, you have the legacy of male theologians making awkward excuses for themselves, undermining the seriousness of the passage. "Oh, it's OK. Jesus said that to tell y'all that being holy is impossible, so give up and rely on grace!" Somehow that doesn't sit right either.
And while I can easily see how these teachings are based on a misreading of the passage, if you have to apply interpretive gloss the passage so carefully to get the proper teaching out of it, is it really that great?
I imagine how this passage has been abused and led to abuse, and I want to - according to its own logic - tear it out! Or amend it with something a little more sane. "Mind your thoughts, for they will become your actions" or somesuch.
Self control is a virtue, certainly, and men should learn to manage themselves on all levels, but my experience is that external threats of existential violence are not conducive to the proper exercise of self control. Plus threatening violence implies a lack of self control. Why is God so incompetent at management that they have to literally threaten people with destruction to get them to do something as simple as not staring at someone else's chest?
Comments
Though at some point the error is on the reader for reading a hyperoble and taking it so literally, I suppose. Though I suddenly recall one of the nuttier of the church fathers might've done that? Name escapes me, one that the Catholics are wary of and the Orthodox are generally pretty comfortable with...*goes Googling*...Origen!
Apparently it's not just moderns taking things too...erm...seriously...
It is rather comedic, I'll admit. And I think that's something about sexual sins from the male perspective. They may seem silly and awkward...until they're not. And when they aren't, they're horrifying. And the shift from the one to the other can happen fast if you're stupid.
And yes. Origen was undeniably weird, though I think his completely deranged behavior does reflect on how a lot of inexperienced guys deal with lust (speaking as someone comfortably married with 3 kids who vaguely remembers that phase.)
I once chatted with a fundamentalist via f-book who described managing lust as "man's greatest battle" and I was glad he couldn't see me laughing at him. ISTM that by inflating the problem he was making it a lot harder than it really needed to be. And more seriously, I do think that's exactly the psychosis that this passage creates in people who misunderstand it. By freaking out about their dicks, they turn into dicks.
I do think you have the sound read of it. I'm just so used to hearing people take an unsound read of it that I wish there were a better way.
The argument went that it was alright to desire single women because you might marry them but not married women because that would constitute adultery.
The Greek scholars and ministers/clergy here will be able to confirm whether or not this is the case.
As for Origen, well he's partly acceptable to the Orthodox but not fully. The general consensus is that he had some good ideas and some things right, but others completely wrong.
I'm not so sure it would have been as obvious to the ancients as it is to us that docking one's dangly bits wouldn't curb lustful thoughts although Origen's alleged action was considered pretty 'out there' at the time.
And thanks for clarifying the church's relationship to Origen, it has been a long time.
"alleged" is the key word here. There is little to no evidence that Origen performed the actions attributed to him by his opponents after his death. Most of the evidence points to his being accepted in his lifetime as a respected priest and teacher.
And @Gamma Gamaliel, if the man in question is married, I can’t see that the marital status of the woman is relevant.
Personally, I would say there is something of a line crossed between noticing that someone is attractive, and imagining having sex with them. Something about being aware and avoiding crossing that line is IMHO what Jesus has in mind. This sits well with a legitimate translation of βλέπων γυναίκα προς επιθυμησαι as ‘looks on a woman in order to lust / with the purpose of lusting’.
What he was trying to say, however sexistly and clumsily, was that if a single fella 'fancied' a single woman then that wasn't sinful in the way that ogling someone else's wife is, or if married men were lusting after single women.
His argument was that the human race would not propagate itself if people didn't have sexual desires.
FWIW I agree with @BroJames that there is a difference between finding someone attractive and imagining having sex with them, particularly if that leads to fantasises and inappropriate attention.
I can't cast the first stone.
Some other hyperpoles:
how about that tiny speck in your neighbor's eye vs the beam in your own,
straining out a gnat while swallowing a camel,
speaking of camels, how about the camel going through the eye of a needle, or
if you want to get into heaven, you must hate your father and mother.
Matthew 5:29f is a deliberately shocking image to stress the seriousness of dealing sin at its source, not literal self mutilation.
And that Jesus must have had a lot of confidence in his disciples to take them to dinner with tax-collectors and prostitutes (even if that's not soliciting).
The marital status of the person you're lusting after makes a difference in only one case--if she's your wife. Otherwise you're sinning against her, God and her spouse, regardless of the technical name (adult? Fornication? Rape?
And the ancients as a whole were probably more familiar with the effects of castration than we are. They dealt with it more commonly than we do.
We need to differentiate between the normal, innocent and momentary "Wow, he/she's gorgeous" and the sinful objectification and use of that person for one's own pleasure that may or may not follow the first noticing. One is ordinary, biologically based and not harmful. The other requires our consent on some level--a choice to carry on with the reaction when it starts to move into mental fondling, etc.
That said society has often had asymmetric standards, to the benefit of the Patriarchy and to the detriment of lower-priveledged males and women of all statuses in different ways.
Catholic Renaissance France being an easy example.
* I can't think of a simple way of excluding violating thoughts (at some point it would arguably not be lust).
I think the following is the most relevant part of that section is:-
I don't think I have overquoted, but the hosts can edit this post if I have overstepped.